Brief or boxers? Study reveals best undies for male fertility

When it comes to the question of whether brief or boxers is best – everyone has an opinion. But if truth be told, we haven’t really known for certain whether the kind of underwear a man wears can really affect the quality of his sperm, until now.

We can now safely say that just like other environmental factors like smoking, STI’s and drinking, a man’s choice in underwear does in fact impact on the quality of his manhood.

The fertility market is projected to reach over $30 billion by 20231:49

As women are freezing their eggs at younger ages, here's how companies are offering coverage for fertility treatments.

May 29th 2018

7 months ago

/display/newscorpaustralia.com/Web/NewsNetwork/Network News/World/

Research lead Dr. Lidia Mínguez-Alarcón, who is also a research scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, MA., and her colleagues examined 656 men aged 18–56 who did not have a history of vasectomies and were looking to be treated for infertility at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

The study found that more than 50 percent of the men who wore boxers had a 25 percent “higher sperm concentration,” a 17 percent higher total sperm count, and 33 percent more swimming sperm than men who said they didn’t usually wear boxers.

As the study authors explain, FSH drives the production of sperm, and they believe that the higher concentration of FSH in people who do not wear boxers suggests that the hormone gets activated and tries to make up for the testicular damage that other types of underwear might induce.

Importantly, the greatest statistical difference in sperm quality was found between men who wore boxer shorts and men who wore jockeys or briefs.